


i wanna be your right hand

by kafkas



Series: i’ll be your slaughterhouse [1]
Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), DCU
Genre: Author's glove kink really jumps out in this one sorry folks, Canon-Typical Violence, Getting Together, Hungarian Zsasz, Knifeplay, M/M, Organized Crime, Pre-Canon, Psychopaths In Love, Scarring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23199235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kafkas/pseuds/kafkas
Summary: Every few shifts or so, Victor will get to be privy to one of his boss's unexpected acts of aggression. The result is always the same: Roman is out of commission for the rest of the evening, apoplectic with rage; the unlucky individual leaves, often in tears; and Victor's regard for Roman will grow incrementally fonder.He supposes he's got what you'd call a little crush.
Relationships: Roman Sionis/Victor Zsasz
Series: i’ll be your slaughterhouse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672252
Comments: 32
Kudos: 307





	i wanna be your right hand

**Author's Note:**

> \- Title is from [_Shannon_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMC7aSQFFH0) by Margot & the Nuclear So and So's. A very Zsaszmask song!  
> \- I'm aware that Zsasz's biography doesn't exactly match-up with his _Batman Chronicles_ backstory, but then, neither does Chris Messina's portrayal of him. For the sake of this fic, I head-canon him as having left Hungary at a fairly young age, fleeing from the collapse of MSzMP. His parents are deceased and were both involved with the Slovak mafia. That's basically all you need to know.

When they first meet, Victor's still recovering from a broken jaw - is incapable, really, of expressing himself beyond a monotone grunt or snarl. There's a patina of bruises covering the entire right side of his face, and a new scar in the shape of a crescent moon buried beneath his stubble - a souvenir by which to remember his recent trip through (unlicensed) surgery. Maxilla, shattered like a Ming vase. Several teeth obliterated in the ensuing shrapnel blast of bone. He's stuck on soft foods for at least another fortnight. 

Roman Sionis, the man they are all here for, peers at him from over the rim of his aviators. Victor has gutted people for looking at him with less disdain. 

'What happened to Tyler Durden, here? He get hit by a fucking bus?' 

'Ah, the esteemed Mr. Zsasz.' Maks, track-suited, smelling of mould, waddles over. He has the air of a used car salesman (the used car in this case being Victor). 'Nothing so fantastical, I'm afraid. _Tovarisch_ just got a little too big for his britches. Needed some disciplining.' 

_Maks, Maks, Maks._ His interminable employer of four years. Victor's fantasised about scalping his bald pate since the day he first met him, though he couldn't exactly afford to be choosy at the time. Had settled, instead, for smaller betrayals.

'Motherfucker thought he could make bank on the side,' Maks coos, pinching Victor's aching cheek between his fat fingers, 'Motherfucker _t_ _hought_ he could skim off Maksim's supply. Fuck around with the LCN. Screw me in ass, basically.'

'And you thought I'd be interested in employing this gentleman?' 

Maks shrugs his meaty shoulders. 'Ahh, is all better now. Victor has learnt lesson. He will not misstep again.'

'Won't he?' 

The slap comes out of nowhere. Even Victor, as inured to violence as he is, doesn't sense it coming. It connects with Maks's face hard enough to send him staggering backward, clutching at his jowls.

'I don't pay for faulty merchandise,' Sionis says, calmly tugging his glove back into place, 'That you'd think otherwise is an insult, Maks.' 

'N--No, of - of course not, Mr. Sionis.' 

'I'm not that kind of man.' 

'No, of course you are not--' Sionis visibly bristles at the repetition, and Maks stutters silent, cringing. He looks over to Victor, desperately, as if _he's_ going to help him, and Victor smiles back, gap-toothed and mocking. 

'I mean, seriously,' Sionis mutters, his back turned, 'I ask for _real Russian gangsters_ and what do they give me? These gypsy fucking crackheads. "Apartment mafia" my ass.' And Victor can't argue with that. It's a sad bunch Maks has gathered in the warehouse tonight. Real scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel material, himself included. 

'Do... _any_ of the men suit your requirements?' 

Sionis sighs and, with an honest to god pout, points out a select few. Victor notices his old buddy Yoon-seok amongst them and can't help but take offence. The guy's talented, sure, a crack shot, but he lacks imagination. Surely Sionis is looking for a guy with _vision._

The rest of them are - well. Big and stupid, which counts for something in the end, Victor supposes. 

'And - the others?' Maks asks, simpering.

Sionis grins. (Victor wonders if it _does_ count as a grin, considering how little mirth is contained in the expression. At which point does a grin just become a baring of teeth?).

It's partly because he's so preoccupied with analysing Sionis's pearly whites (in the purely clinical, predatory sense) that Victor doesn't notice him reach into the lining of his jacket and retrieve a pistol. Once again, the sudden burst of violence is completely unanticipated by all parties. Victor doubts even Sionis himself is thinking terribly hard about what comes next. Maks is the first to go down, mustard yellow tracksuit blooming red around the brand new hole in his stomach. Two more goons are smoked before the shock has had time to wear off, and then people are yelling and scattering in all directions. Among them are some of them men Sionis had just recruited, which is - well. Bottom-of-the-barrel doesn't exactly mean smart. 

Victor and the others have the wherewithal to remain rooted to the spot. 

Eventually, the screaming and the cursing dies down as everyone either make their escape or - _doesn't_. Victor watches, mildly impressed, as Sionis stalks over to a kid he'd capped in the knee and finishes the job execution style. He's smart enough to avert his gaze, however, when the mob boss returns, irritated, muttering about a speck of blood on his shoes. Ridiculous fucking shoes. Ridiculous fucking outfit, printed with flowers like his _nagymama_ 's sofa. Attractive people really can wear whatever takes their fancy. 

' _You_ ,' Sionis says, and Victor feels his nerves sing. It's always like this, the moment before a fight. Synapses firing, nostrils flaring. Something rabid, clawing its way up from the cage inside his chest. 

But he's misread the situation. There is no rage left in Sionis's eyes. If anything, he just looks tired, fingers slack around the grip of his revolver. He waves it at Victor, careless. 

'Maksim said you fucked around with the LCN. American Mafia. That true?' 

Victor nods, careful to keep his face shuttered, expressionless. Doesn't even look at Maks, gurgling his last on the pavement at his feet, though he'd like to. But he's being interviewed. 

'I take it, then, that you're the same Zsasz who used to run with Stefano Galante.' 

_Yes._

'And you were on the firing squad, that day at the Bertinelli Estate. The firing squad _I_ backed.' 

_Yes._

'Huh. Talk about ships passing in the fucking night.' He narrows his eyes. 'You're not some freak who gets off on killing kids, are you?' 

Zsasz shrugs, languid. He gets off on killing, period. 

Sionis purses his lips, tilting his head from side-to-side. Deliberating. It's in this moment that one of Victor's few remaining peers decides to make a run for it, scrabbling across the bloodied concrete. Sionis doesn't so much as break eye contact with Victor as he raises his pistol and fires, hitting the guy square between the shoulder blades. Somewhere deep inside, buried beneath a heady layer boredom and the malaise, Victor feels a twinge of interest. He imagines this must be what a piano feels like when it's struck with a tuning rod. 

'Fine,' Sionis says, with an all-suffering sigh, 'You and the three _kkangpae_ , with me. Andre the Giant there, too. The rest of you, fuck off back to whatever housing estate you crawled out of. And tell your bosses to show a modicum of respect next time. I'm Roman fucking Sionis.' 

And that's how Victor comes to work at the Black Mask Club. On door duty, because Roman doesn't want to look at his ugly fucking mug. Shepherding angry drunks, hosing away vomit - amateur hour, but it pays well, his trustafarian employer not yet having learnt that money doesn't necessarily equal loyalty. Victor isn't going to be the one to tell him. With all of this fresh cash flooding in, he can afford to move out of his shitty Bowery apartment, find somewhere with a working AC. Can afford, too, to properly indulge in his hobby - purchases with his first pay cheque a brand new set of scalpels (gold with pearl inlay). It's a fucking travesty, the tools he's been using up until now. Like being handicapped. 

If anyone from the Slovak Mafia comes asking after him, Victor doesn't hear a peep. He didn't miss Debrecen when his family fled in '89, and he doesn't miss the company of his countrymen now. There's Gyuri, the colossus Sionis has hired by way of intimidation, but he and Victor aren't on speaking terms. Nobody is with him, really. Victor doesn't exactly encourage that kind of closeness.

The rest of the Black Mask crew is a hotchpotch of La Cosa Nostra, narco, _kkangpae_ , ex-Triad, ex-Yakuza - anybody you can name. Almost every small-time syndicate operating out of Gotham has offered up a low-ranking member or two as a gesture of goodwill, which means Roman Sionis has clout. Victor wouldn't have guessed it, just by looking at him, but then, he _had_ been the brains behind the Bertinelli massacre. There's method behind all of his madness. 

After two weeks, the wiring's removed from Victor's jaw, and he can speak again. He doesn't bother alerting anybody to this fact. He stays quiet, stays respectful.

The most exciting part of his shift comes at 6:00pm, when Roman swans out the door to greet the evening's first partygoers. Victor will nod - quietly, respectfully - and Roman will nod back, always looking faintly disgusted by him. This is not the point. _The point_ is that _sometimes_ , somebody will say the wrong thing. Somebody will try to bring in a friend who's not on the guest list. Somebody will wear a tacky outfit, or - god forbid - wear the same thing as Roman, in some misguided attempt to be funny. _The point_ is that every few shifts or so, Victor will get to be privy to one of his boss's unexpected acts of aggression. The result is always the same: Roman is out of commission for the rest of the evening, apoplectic with rage; the unlucky individual leaves, often in tears; and Victor's regard for Roman will grow incrementally fonder. 

He supposes he's got what you'd call a little crush. 

It's not that Victor is attracted to Roman's anger. After all, he's spent most of his life around angry men. His father was an angry man. After he'd died, the majority of Victor's mentors had also been angry men - and sometimes the odd angry woman. Victor would follow them (teenaged, at this point in his development; whippet thin and sullen, in clothes two sizes too big), trying his best to imitate their rabid posturing, and as a result he can throw a fantastic tantrum when prompted. Tantrums to rival Roman's, even - heavy like a thunderstorm in their promise of violence. 

No, it's Roman's magnificent sense of entitlement, he thinks. How he always demands the best, and, more often than not, is given it. His theatrics would render him ridiculous - a caricature - if they didn't seem perpetually to work in his favour. Victor's never exactly had dreams. His ritual is his passion, but never in his mind's eye has there been an end to it, a precipice. Roman has a future laid out for himself. A _size_. It's almost intoxicating. 

But all of this daydreaming should _not_ to imply that Victor has at all softened. During his first few months at the Black Mask Club, his collection of tallies grows larger than it has in years. Though he dispatches nobody of great import, he finds more satisfaction in killing now that he is out from under Maks’ fleshy thumb. Victor had disliked the Russian greatly, though never enough to warrant murdering him. Never enough to consider braving Gotham’s criminal underworld alone, with so few friends and so many enemies.

Now, however, he feels an odd sense of impunity. Chalk it up to puppy love, or some Zsasz-like approximation of it, at any rate. There’s something almost magical about the streets of Gotham’s East Side in the small hours of the morning, after their crew has closed up the club but before dawn’s rosy fingers have clawed their way across the sky. Victor stays late, wiping down tables, sweeping up broken glass.

There’s always a couple of dancers seated on the stoop whatever the hour, cigarettes dangling from their fingers. They’ll ask Victor if he needs a lift, even offer up a rhinestone-studded phone so that he can call an Uber. To them, he’s just some guy – quiet, a bit of a loner; better than most of the men they come across, in that he’s never tried to cop a feel. He’ll smile, flashing his new fillings, and politely turn them down. He half-suspects they’re ingratiating themselves towards him, subconsciously, perhaps. Something about him seems to scream _predator_ no matter what mask he dons.

Afterwards, he’ll find some vagrant or council worker. Somebody who won’t be missed. If he’s feeling bold, he’ll even follow someone home from the club – nobody who’d pissed Roman off, he’s not so stupid as to be _that_ obvious – but somebody, perhaps, who’d gotten too close. A hand in the crook of his elbow. A drink sent to his private table. Some laughing, twittering thing. An heir or an heiress, usually, and Victor tells himself that this is why Roman indulges them. For their money.

He has no right to be jealous.

Still, it’s a momentary relief to add their tallies to his skin. The back of a thigh. A divot between his ribs. The ( _ha_ ) crook of an elbow. Private, intimate places. He wonders when he became such a fucking schoolgirl about these things.

He'd known Yoon-seok was small-minded when it came to carnage, but it's almost disappointing to discover that he's an idiot about other things, too. Namely betrayal. I mean, really: who discusses double-crossing a guy in the very club owned by the man in question?

Victor listens, too disbelieving to be even slightly amused, as he and three other goons hold court outside his bathroom stall (Bencivenni, De Luca and Evangelista, from the look of their custom loafers). He'd just zipped up his fly when the door crashed open and now he sits atop the cistern, listening. At first, it had sounded simple enough: Yoon-seok had been tapped by a rival mob boss, and had in turn approached Bencivenni and his boys hoping to collaborate. They hadn't vibed with his request, and ostensibly had brought him in here with the intention of maiming and/or killing him. Victor himself had been on the receiving end of a similar treatment only four months ago, after Maks' guys had found out about the horse he'd been siphoning from their supply. He can almost sympathise. 

However, the crucial difference between he and Yoon-seok is that Victor had immediately gotten his face staved in with a lead fucking pipe, whereas the _kkangpae_ is given plenty of time to talk. Soon, Bencivenni and Co. are coming around to the idea of betraying the Black Mask, especially when Yoon-seok drops the name of his contact: Pan Xiulan. Even Victor's breath catches a little at the sound of it, clear and proud on the _kkangpae_ 's tongue

Pan Xiulan. One of the most revered mob bosses in all of Gotham. Like a jewel-toned snake: beautiful, wealthy, and utterly without conscience. Her territory extends from the Docklands, through to Little Korea and into Chinatown. She has her pretty finger in every pie known to man: money laundering, weapons dealing, human trafficking, protection, assassination, prostitution. Roman hates her with a burning passion; because she's beloved of almost everyone, because she's a woman, or because she's entirely uninterested in him, Victor isn't exactly sure. What he does know is that Roman is also frightened of her. Anyone with half a brain would be. Her empire is large and closely-knit, made up entirely of Tong memberswho have been entrenched in Gotham since the 1800s. They have been in an uneasy stalemate since Roman's False Face Society first became a blip on her radar, and only because Roman is too small to go up against her, and she too colossal to be bothered with swatting him. 

Evidently, their stalemate has just been broken. 

Victor feels a giddy sense of satisfaction as he clambers down off of the toilet seat. Bencivenni and the others have just left, promising to think it over (they won't tell Roman, not with the even more palpable threat of Pan Xiulan looming over them like a Sword of Damocles). It's just he and Yoon-seok. With languid confidence, Victor flushes the toilet and exits the cubical, never having felt more grateful for Roman's girlish need for privacy. Yoon-seok looks like he's just been hit over the head with a - well. With a lead pipe. 

'Zsasz,' he says, in a voice already leaden with dread. It's a voice that says: _have I just made the worst mistake of my life?_

Victor nods, feigning disinterest, as he crosses over to the washbasin. He scrubs his hands, taking his sweet time, and considers whether using the dryer for a minute or two would be unforgivably cruel. 

'Uh, hey. Hey, Zsasz, buddy, listen,' Yoon-seok says, gently, tentatively. Oh, how Victor _loathes_ him. 'You didn't hear any of that, did you?' 

_What a stupid fucking question._

'Hear what?' 

Yoon-seok gives him a look, and, really, it takes some balls to be churlish with Victor, given his current predicament. It really does. 'This club, Zsasz. And this crazy fucking brand of his - the "False Face Society"? It's a road to nowhere, man.' 

'Uh-huh.' 

'And there are a whole bunch of us looking to get out.' 

'Really? Because it seemed like you were all on your lonesome until a few minutes ago.' 

Yoon-seok scrubs at his beard, eyes watering. When he next speaks, his voice is ragged. 'If you mention this to him, Zsasz, he'll - he'll skin me alive. You've seen what he does to - what he _did_ , that day in the warehouse. And - and I have a _family_...' 

Zsasz decides it's time to put him out of his misery. 'Look, man, I really don't give a flying fuck what you do either way.' Yoon-seok blinks at him in surprise, mouth hanging open. 'Mr. Sionis is my boss, he pays me and all, but what exactly has he done for me besides that? Are we best buds now or something? Is he sucking my dick?' Yoon-seok savagely shakes his head, and Victor smiles, thin and mean. 'Just don't fuck up this job for me, okay?' he says, thumping the smaller man between the ribs as he passes by. 

'N-no,' Yoon-seok stammers, 'Of course not, Zsasz, you - you won't hear a word of it, I promise. And thank you, dude. _Thank you_.' 

_No,_ Victor thinks, trying not to grin, _thank_ you _,_ _Yoon-seok._

He's finally got an in. 

Just as Victor has expected, a conference is called in Roman's loft a week later. Twelve of them, Yoon-seok and Bencivenni included. Victor, too, and he tries not to feel a sense of pride at that - never before has he been invited into Roman's inner sanctum. Hands clasped loosely behind his back, he lets his eyes rove slowly over the spacious living area, lingering on a mask here, a statue there. Victor knows nothing about art, but even a layman like himself can tell there's something distinctly macabre about Roman's collection. A preoccupation with death. He admires it.

Admires too the sight of the man himself, pajamaed and swamped in a voluminous cashmere trench, the colour of persimmon - aposematic. It's freezing in the loft. Roman has misplaced his slippers. He seems more preoccupied with this than the meeting that has been arranged with Pan, the details of which his frontman is detailing to him now. It will be just the two of them - a parley at a junkyard in the Docklands. Minimal muscle. Victor half-listens, bored, irritated. Wonders how many of these bastards have already switched sides. 

The meeting is eventually interrupted by the arrival of Roman's breakfast, wheeled in on a trolley by the club chef. Roman seats himself at the exact centre of the long dining table, Christ-like, and lays a cloth napkin over his knees. 'Was there anything else?' he asks, eyebrows raised. 

'No, Mr. Sionis.' 

'Good. Then stop standing there gawping. I hate being watched while I eat.' 

Awkwardly, they disperse, some of them to their respective jobs downstairs, others to carry out Roman's orders in regards to Pan Xiulan. Bencivenni, De Luca and Evangelista have been tasked with canvassing their meeting place, picking out positions for snipers, arranging a getaway route if needed. It's laughable, really, how easily this has all fallen into their laps. Victor waits beside an antique vase in a shadowed alcove, until the elevator doors finally close on the last few stragglers, and then steps out, cat-footed, into the living area. Roman doesn't look up from his hardboiled egg, but he registers his presence all the same, nose crinkling.

'Don't you have a job to do? Or! Perhaps you're here to kill me.' Roman sets his spoon down, pale eyes piercing. He's lovely. 'You should know there's a shotgun under the table.' 

'Don't go, tomorrow,' Victor says, and he's surprised by how harried the words sound, leaving his mouth. 

Roman, evidently, is also surprised. 'It speaks!' he exclaims, as if Victor were a performing monkey. 'And here I was thinking you were mute. Or retarded.' When Victor doesn't immediately resume his petition, Roman waves his espresso cup at him, impatient. 'Well, go on. You've kept this little talent of yours hidden for so long, it'd be a shame to let it go to waste now.' 

'Don't go to the junkyard. It's a set-up.' 

Roman laughs - a short, unamused huff. 'Right.' 

'I'm serious. There's a group of guys, want to join her crew. Tomorrow's not a meeting about joint weapons shipments. It's their initiation.' 

'And how did you come by that tender morsel of information?' 

'Heard them talking about it,' Victor says, honestly, 'Yoon-seok. Bencivenni and his guys. They got - delusions of grandeur.' (He's actually kind of proud of that one). 

'And they didn't try to hide this from you?' 

Victor shrugs. 'Yoon-seok doesn't care what I hear. He thinks I'm stupid.' 

'Can't imagine why,' Roman mutters, and Victor feels his throat constrict with anger. He'd only been trying to help. Only been trying to do his fucking _job_. (Another part of him flushes hot with shame. For wanting Roman. For caring about what he thinks). 

'Do you have any proof?' the mob boss asks, although it's clear his attention has already wandered to the newspaper spread out before him. 

'No,' Victor grits. 

'So, I'm to take you at your word, am I? A guy whose last boss couldn't wait to get rid of him? A guy who'd be locked up in Arkham if it weren't for some _very_ good lawyers.' Roman cocks his head to one side, anger momentarily abated. 'Have you been killing guests?' he asks, plainly, and Victor feels his heart leap into his throat. 

'What?' 

'See,' Roman says, rising to his feet, 'I thought I must be imagining things, but that's three folks who've turned up dead since you started working here. And then you come to me, telling this crazy fucking story, with that crazy fucking look in your eye, and now I'm wondering if maybe it's _you_ I should be wary of, Mister Zsasz.' He's stood before him now, a good two inches taller, sneering, disgusted (always disgusted), and Victor can't recall having ever felt quite so contrite in his life. ' _Maybe_ , you've been turned.'

'No.'

'Hm?' Roman taps his ear, 'Sorry - didn't quite catch that.' 

'I wouldn't turn,' Victor says, thickly, forcing himself to meet Roman's eye, 'I _like_ this job. I like the money.' ( _I like you_ ). 'What... What I do when I'm not here, that's - that's _my_ business.' 

'Huh.' Roman looks him up and down, the tip of his tongue pinched between his teeth. 'Then fuck off,' he says, lightly. 

Victor blinks. 'Wh--' 

'You like this job so much? Get out of my sight before I fire you.'

When it becomes clear that Roman isn't joking, Victor capitulates, backing away in the direction of the elevator. 

'Oh, and you can forget about being a part of the escort tomorrow!' Roman calls after him, 'I don't want crazy watching my back!' 

Victor waits until the doors close before letting his carefully schooled expression drop, his fists clenched, teeth bared. 

The next morning, he follows them to the junkyard. Of course he fucking does. 

It’s difficult to tell Pan Xiulan's age just by looking at her. Victor would place her anywhere between twenty and forty, given that her grand-dame mother still looked just as youthful at seventy. Her hair is cropped close to her scalp and she wears what looks like a man’s suit, square-shouldered and cinched at the waist with a wide leather belt. Despite this, there is something undeniably feminine about her – undeniably beautiful. Her eyes, wide-set, are black and shining like a seabird’s. Her mouth is blood red. 

‘ _Roman_ ,’ she purrs, white teeth shining, her hand outstretched.

‘The venerable Miss Pan Xiulan, a pleasure.’ Roman lifts her jewel-encrusted fingers to his lips. He really is a spectacular actor, when he wants to be. You’d never guess how much he hates her. ‘I was truly _so_ gratified to hear from you. The boys and I were starting to think you’d forgotten our little club.’

‘Only saving the best till last,’ Pan says, with a twinkle.

From his hiding place, crouched behind a rusted shipping container, Victor resists the urge to gag. He’s always despised diplomacy.

There are eight of them in total, himself not included. The hulking room they're meeting in must have once been some kind of truck depot; hooked chains hang from the ceiling and several rusted cargo beds have been stacked up against the far wall. Echoey, with very minimal cover. Roman is flanked by Gyuri and Bencivenni, Pan Xiulan by two equally large men in motorcycle leathers. Victor knows for a fact that Roman’s got two shooters on the depot mezzanine, and doesn’t doubt Pan has a similar crew at her disposal, if not larger. So, ten of them, in actuality. Maybe even a dozen. It’s a shit show of epic proportions and Victor wonders for the umpteenth time this morning why he’s even bothering trying to save Roman’s ass. It’s not like he’ll get a _thank you_.

Perhaps there’s something perversely exciting about saving a life for once, rather than taking one. Perhaps Victor is just too far gone to care about his feelings ever being returned.

When the moment comes, he is far more prepared for it than he’d been expecting. Deep in conversation, Roman doesn’t notice the grim look exchanged between Bencivenni and one of Pan Xiulan’s hulking goons. Whether or not Pan herself has planned this down to the minute, it’s difficult to tell – she gives no signal, no order. Perhaps there had been a code-word, wormed innocuously into some sentence.

Slowly, as if suspended in molasses, Victor watches Bencivenni reach into the lining of his jacket. Watches too as Gyuri extends one hulking mitt towards the back of Roman’s neck. A kidnapping, then. To grill him for information, Victor suspects, rather than demand a ransom. From what he's heard, he doubts Richard Sionis would pay more than a penny for his errant son’s release.

Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s striding across the depot floor, no longer making any attempt to mask his footfalls.

‘Hey, fuckhead!’ he shouts, and several things happen at once.

Roman, affronted, whips his head around, only to come face to face with a confused Bencivenni, pistol drawn. ‘What the fuck?’ he exclaims, and slaps the offending object away – a reckless and entirely instinctual reaction. Bencivenni’s finger trips on the trigger and he accidentally strikes one of Pan Xiulan’s goons under the chin. 

Gyuri, who Victor knows is deaf in one ear from his time in Magyar 5th Infantry, is still gaping like an idiot, unsure of the source of the sudden panic. Victor shoots him right in his big fucking head, and the Hungarian goes down with the impact of a felled redwood.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Pan demands, agitated but not afraid, as if Victor has just crashed one of her high-society parties. Before he can answer her with a bullet, shots ring out from the mezzanine and a white-hot lash of pain cuts through Victor’s leg. He flails madly, firing into the shadows, and one of his bullets must hit home because there’s a loud clatter followed by a gurgle. Victor topples to the floor, leg momentarily giving out on him.

Meanwhile, Roman has managed to wrest Bencivenni’s gun away from anywhere vital and they’re locked in a kind of brutal embrace. Roman is kicking him repeatedly in the shins with his pointy snakeskin shoes.

‘ _Mother! Fucker!_ ’ he bellows, spittle flying.

For want of anything more eloquent, Victor sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles, earsplittingly loud. Roman looks up, eyes wild, and quickly catches Victor’s meaning. He hurls Bencivenni between them and Victor fires, taking him out at the knees. Roman retrieves his own gun and finishes the job, his usually handsome face contorted in anger.

Meanwhile, Pan Xiulan, speaking rapid-fire Cantonese into an earpiece, is being ushered out the emergency exit by her remaining bodyguard. To her credit, she doesn’t scream when his head explodes, splattering her pristine white collar with blood, but she does take a lurching step or two backwards, mouth a perfect ‘o’ of surprise.

‘You vile bitch!’ Roman shouts, quickly swiveling his gun in her direction.

Pan recovers herself admirably, a pocket derringer appearing in her hand from seemingly nowhere. ‘Don’t fucking move,’ she snaps, but Roman, never one to be told what to do, disobeys, clipping her in the shoulder and sending the little gun skittering across the floor. Before he can settle matters with his rival more permanently, however, another spray of bullets rains down from above.

‘Back!’ Victor barks, staggering to his feet, and is pleasantly surprised when Roman obeys, bolting for the open garage door. Victor tries to track him, wants to make sure he gets safely out of the line of fire, but is distracted by a metallic clamour of footsteps behind him. He turns to see none other than Yoon-seok beating a hasty retreat down the depot’s metal staircase.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ he snarls, raising his pistol, but is again interrupted by Pan Xiulan’s last remaining shooters. From where he’s crouched now, he can see them clearly, and it’s easy to take out one and tag the other. But when he looks up, Yoon-seok is gone, as is Pan Xiulan.

‘Ah, fuck,’ Victor sighs, scratching at his head with the barrel of his gun.There’s a screech of tires outside and for a moment he tenses, anticipating reinforcements. But it’s just Roman, attempting to back the Rolls into the depot. Attempting, and failing spectacularly. 

‘Zsasz!’ he shouts, winding down the window, ‘Zsasz, come on! I won't wait all day!’

Victor tucks his pistol down the back of his pants and wrenches open the driver’s side door. ‘Get out,’ he grunts, pulling Roman up by his armpits.

‘What on earth —’

‘You can’t drive like this.’ (Can’t drive at all). ‘Mr. Sionis! _Roman_. You’re shaking. Come on, they’ll be back any minute now.’

Roman purses his lips and for the second time that day, miraculously, he _obeys_ , clambering into the back of the Rolls. Victor throws himself behind the wheel and slams his foot down on the peddle, launching them with the smell of burning rubber into the light of day. He’s half expecting to be met by a full battalion of Chinese mafiosos, but the junkyard remains blessedly derelict. Evidently, Pan had been expecting an easier run of it.

‘We need to lose this car,’ Victor says, more to himself than to Roman, ‘The Tong will be looking for it. Not permanently, just for a couple of days. We can hide it in a garage or something. And then we need to get back to the club.’

'Why are you helping me?' Roman exclaims, sounding close to hysteria. 

Suddenly, Victor is very glad that he's seated in front of the Rolls' tinted partition. 'I don't fucking know. I, uh - I like you, I guess.' 

' _Why?'_ Roman's voice breaks in genuine bewilderment. 

'Fuck! This is what you want to - right now! I - I dunno, Roman, I just like you. _I just do_.' (The tips of Victor's ears are burning). '... We're the same.' 

'We most certainly are fucking _not_ ,' Roman snaps, 'For one: I wash.' 

They're at that junction interrupted by a bullet pinging off of the Rolls' wing mirror. Roman yelps, and without thinking Victor swerves, throwing them out of the line of fire. This unfortunately sends them crashing through the junkyard's chainlink fence. The wheels don't snag, thankfully, but it's a momentary shock to the system. Victor slams on the breaks, needing stillness and quiet for a minute. In the back seat, Roman sounds as if he's hyperventilating. 

'I wash,' he mutters, darkly. 

'There's - blood crusted under your fingernails!' 

'That's -' Victor bites down on a nasty retort, 'That's from before.' _From saving your ass._

When Roman next speaks, he sounds cowed. 'Yeah, well. You should have dealt with Pan more permanently, back there. She's going to be sore about those guys we capped - her fucking cousins, Zsasz! She'll... she'll come after you.' 

'I'll go,' Victor says, reaching to undo his seatbelt. 

'What? Fuck! No.' Roman abruptly slides back the partition. His flushed face appears in the Rolls' rearview mirror, hair hanging down like errant quotation marks. ' _You_ just took down six fully-armed men. Well, five, actually, because you let that little Korean fucker get away. But the point still stands: fantastic fucking work, Zsasz! No, _y_ _ou_ stay with _me._ We'll take those bastards as they come.' 

To say Victor's heart _soars_ would be a vast understatement. 

They swap cars in Chinatown, Victor leaving the Rolls with one of Roman’s trusted ( _ha_ ) contacts. The remainder of the drive back to the club is uncomfortable, to say the least. Victor’s thigh aches like a bitch from where Yoon-seok’s bullet had grazed him (he doesn’t know for sure that it was Yoon-seok’s bullet, but the righteous sense of irritation he feels when he picture’s that fucker’s face is its own sort of balm).

Near-death adrenaline having quickly worn off, Roman is sullen and withdrawn in the backseat. Victor glances at him a couple of times in the rearview mirror, and thinks he sees him mouthing something to himself, eyes narrowed. Ranting about how he’ll get his revenge, probably.

They park in the alley, Victor making sure that the coast is clear before hurrying his boss through the back door. The club is empty save for a couple of dancers, practicing their routine for the night. At the sight of Roman’s disheveled appearance and Victor’s obvious limp, their chatter comes to an abrupt halt.

‘Is everything –’ one begins, and Victor presses a finger to his lips, fixing her with a harsh look. He bundles Roman into the elevator, hitting the button for the loft, and then ducks back to the kitchen for first-aid-kit. Realistically, it’s more appropriately stocked for stovetop burns than it is for bullet wounds, but he needs to stop the bleeding before tending to Roman's whole - _thing_. 

It’s as he’s got his pants down around his ankles, bandaging his leg, that one of the dancers sticks her head through the service hatch. ‘Oh fuck,’ she exclaims, a cigarette drooping from her lip, ‘It went that badly?’

Victor grunts, reaching for the medical tape. The girl watches him, elbows resting on the counter.

‘You want me to call someone?’ At Victor’s incredulous expression, she rolls her eyes. ‘Not a fucking ambulance - one of Mr. Sionis’s guys. Ex-Medical-Corps. They'd give you something for the pain.' 

Victor stops what he's doing, peering up at her. The girl peers back, impervious. Slightly bored, even. 

‘You’re new here,’ he states, because she is. She wouldn't be trying to talk to him otherwise. 

The girl takes a long drag of her cigarette. ‘Dinah Lance. I started last month.’

‘As a dancer?' 

She scoffs, exhaling smoke. ‘Do I look like a bouncer to you?’

‘No. No, you don't. And I'd suggest you stay in your fucking lane.’ Victor pulls his pants back up, the gesture slightly undermining his authority, if Dinah’s thin smirk is any indication. He jabs a finger at the ceiling. ‘Boss’s been through a lot today. Doesn’t have much patience for fools. Somebody interrupts us, that somebody gets forcibly fucking ejected, y'hear me?’

‘ _Yessir_ ,’ Dinah says, offering him a mock salute before letting the service hatch swing shut. Victor decides then and there that he hates her. 

The lights are mostly off, the curtains all drawn, when Victor steps out of the elevator and into the loft. There’s a pale glow emanating from the end of the curving corridor he knows leads to the master bedroom, but the living area is swamped in darkness. Roman sits on a chaise lounge, suit jacket discarded, the orange tip of a cigarette glowing by his left hand. In his right there’s the hard, unmistakable shape of a gun.

‘Boss,’ Victor says, slowly, and Roman lets out a shuddering sigh of relief, finger sliding from the trigger.

‘Jesus Christ, Zsasz, I thought you were one of Pan’s goons. What took you so fucking long?’

‘Hurt my leg. Needed the kit.’ Victor takes a hesitant step forward. ‘... Mind if I turn on a light?’

‘What?’ Roman looks around, as if only just registering the cloying darkness. ‘Oh. Sure. Knock yourself out.’

Victor switches on a lamp, honeyed gold flooding the room. Thrown into sharp relief, Roman looks even worse, pale and shaking, faintly. One of his eyes has burst a vessel, possibly from the rush of cortisol released during the attack at the junkyard, more likely from crying alone up here in the dark. His cigarette has burnt down to almost nothing between his fingers. Victor grimaces, the smell reminding him unpleasantly of Dinah Lance, and goes to fetch an ashtray.

‘How’s everything downstairs?’ Roman asks, grinding out the ashes as if they have a personal vendetta against him.

‘Quiet. Normal... The dancers are worried.’

‘My girls,’ Roman murmurs, fondly, and for a moment it seems as if he's recovered himself. Then he looks up at Victor, pupils quivering pinpricks of rage. ‘I want whoever was involved in this little coup dead, Zsasz. I want them fucking _crucified_ , is that understood?’

‘‘Course, boss.’

‘That bitch Pan Xiulan is going to rue the day she was born. I’ll _make her_ rue it. Thought she could fucking dupe me! Stupid whore.’ And as abruptly as the tirade came on, it subsides, Roman breaking eye-contact and burying his head in his hands. Victor tries not to feel too disappointed. ‘I only wanted to talk about joint shipments,’ he mumbles, ‘Thought we could work together. Wasn’t even going to ask for the Tong’s fealty. Why do people _insist_ on _stabbing me in the back?_ ’

‘They’re afraid of you.’

‘Ha. _Right_.’

‘It’s true.’ Victor kneels down so that he’s at eye-level. ‘Why else would they try to kill you in secret? And why bother turning Yoon-seok and the others? They have enough manpower to storm the club right now and kill everyone inside, but instead, they’re sneaking around like a bunch of pussies.’ Feeling emboldened, Victor reaches forward and grips Roman by the forearm, shaking him lightly. ‘It’s because they _know_ that you have shooters in every corner of Gotham City. They know, because you’re _Roman fucking Sionis_.’

Roman laughs, wetly, and lifts his head; smiles, looking almost embarrassed. Victor would die for him.

‘I didn’t thank you. For trying to warn me.’

Victor shrugs. ‘Don’t bother. I should have tried harder.’

Roman looks down at his gloved hands, the fingers of his right still curled inwards from the force with which he’d been gripping the revolver. 

‘Can’t stop fuckin’ shaking,’ he laughs, ‘Can’t even untie my goddamn shoes.’

Without thinking, Victor lifts one snakeskin loafer and rests it on his knee, fingers moving to the laces. Roman makes a small, abject sound, as if he’s going to object, and then stills. He stares down at Victor as if he were some rare exotic animal. Maybe one of the ones he’s got stuffed and mounted on the wall.

Victor in turn stares down at his boss’s shoes with a bomb technician’s focus. He thinks that he is, for the first time in his life, nervous. The loafers are relatively new, the leather still stiff. He has to grasp Roman’s ankle slightly in order to pull the first one off. It’s as he’s busy untying the second that Roman’s hand comes to rest atop his head, and Victor stills, glancing up expectantly. A part of him still wonders idly if Roman’s about to reprimand him, perhaps even shoot him with the revolver that’s still laying off to one side on the chaise. However, if the colour blooming high on Roman’s cheeks is anything to go by, this ceased to be what you'd call a standard employer-employee interaction several minutes ago.

Victor has to actively stop himself from leaning into the warm, buttery feeling of Roman’s gloved hand trailing over his cheek, coming to rest at the corner of his mouth. 

'Bite,' Roman says, voice very low, and Victor doesn't have to think twice as to his meaning. Maybe it's the dog in him. He takes a leather fingertip between his teeth and _pulls._

Above him, there's a sharp intake of breath. One could almost mistake it for a wince of pain, were Victor not being ever so careful. The glove comes off in one slow drag. 

'And the other,' Roman adds, needlessly. He sounds hoarse. Victor doesn't need to be told twice. Of all of Roman's many gloves, this pair is his favourite. Not that stupid monogrammed shit he wears downstairs, in the club. Just these black driving gloves, the lambskin so supple he can see the leather pale when Roman clenches his fists (has caught himself wondering, erroneously, what they'd feel like clenched around his throat). 

'Drop it,' his boss commands, and Victor obeys unthinkingly, mouth falling open. If only Maks could see him now, so thoroughly domesticated. Roman's glove is quickly replaced by his bare hand. His fingers are gentle beneath Victor's jaw - gentle, but firm. The pad of a thumb grazes over the jagged ridge of his teeth; presses down, experimentally, on the tip of a canine. Victor's eyes flutter shut. 

'Huh,' Roman remarks, surprised by his passivity. Pleased with it. Abruptly, he hooks his thumb behind the bottom row and tugs, pulling Victor forward until he's down on his hands as well as his knees. From this angle, he can see clearly just how hard Roman is in his slacks. 

'And to think, when we first met I thought you were just another hired goon. You're not, though, are you, Mr. Zsasz? Another goon?' 

Victor shakes his head. It's a difficult task, with Roman's fingers in his mouth. 

'No. No, I understand now, understand that _you_ have something that the others lack. A sense of duty. A sense of, hm... loyalty. Isn't that right?' 

And Victor nods, that base, preening part of him enjoying the flattery, though in truth he has never been a particularly loyal individual. What he feels for Roman veers more on the side of obsession. A different man might even call it love. 

As if able to read his thoughts, Roman smiles fondly, almost sweetly, and pats him on the cheek. 

'Why don't you unbuckle my belt and show us both how loyal you really are.' 

Afterwards (afterwards in this case meaning after Victor’s fucked Roman thoroughly enough to render him dead to the world for at least a couple of hours), he stands before the mirror. At first, it had been nice just to lay in Roman’s bed, in the dark, listening to the myriad of noises Roman makes while he’s asleep (he is as loud in this as he is in every other aspect of his life). Victor’s never been particularly domestic, but that’s just what it had been: _nice_. He’d never considered before that he could have Roman’s affection as well as his respect. Now that he's got both, he finds he enjoys it immensely. 

Eventually, however, the itch had taken over, and he’d pulled on his boxer shorts and slipped into the en suite. Roman keeps an ivory-handled straight razor in the cabinet above the washbasin (of course he fucking does). It doesn’t fill Victor with quite the same sense of religious deference that his scalpels do, but it’ll do the job. He’s certainly not driving back to his apartment.

It’s as he’s adding the second tally to his shoulder – a vague, impersonal spot, for the faceless sniper he’d taken out – that Roman appears behind him in the mirror. His hair is cow-licked like a little boy’s, and he’s too busy buttoning his pajama shirt to notice Victor’s frankly compromising position.

‘You know, I think you might have _actually_ thrown my hip out, you fucking neanderthal.’ (He _is_ walking a little gingerly). ‘Seriously, Zsasz, I swear to god, if something’s broken, I’m docking the medical bills from your pay, and that’s on top of the damage done to my… car.’ Ah. _Now_ he’s seen it. 

Victor doesn’t know what to expect. People he’s slept with in the past typically respond with something akin to pity. They assume that he’s got some kind of disorder. Others are frightened. A rare few are turned on.

Roman just stares, his eyes narrowed slightly.

Victor refuses to feel self-conscious. He reaches for the plasters. ‘I know it’s strange. I can leave, if that’s what you want.’

Another movement in the mirror: Roman, shaking his head. ‘No, that’s not… I read the papers. From the trial. I knew that you had – a system. Just didn’t expect it to be this fuckin’ elaborate.’ Victor jerks a little as Roman’s hand settles between his bare shoulder-blades. ‘How many?’ he breathes.

‘I’ve lost count.’

‘Now, I don’t believe that for a second.’

Victor takes a deep, steadying breath, again feeling inexplicably nervous. ‘Forty-eight. But I only started counting when I was eighteen.’

‘So, more.’

Victor laughs, shakily. ‘Yeah, more.’

Roman hums, hand sliding down to a patch of poorly healed tissue by his hip. ‘How many are you making now?’

‘Just one more.’

‘Aw, what about Bencivenni?’

‘ _You_ killed him.’

‘Barely. You can take it, if you want.’

‘No.’ Victor shakes his head. ‘That’s not how it works.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Roman pouts, mockingly contrite, ‘Tell me how it works, then.’ His other hand comes to rest atop Victor’s own. ‘Is _this_ allowed?’ he murmurs, guiding it toward the straight razor.

Victor swallows thickly, his dick giving a twitch of interest. ‘Don’t know. Never done that before. I’d have to think it over.’ 

‘You couldn’t make an exception for your dear old boss?’

‘I suppose.’ He lets his fingers close around the ivory handle. Lets Roman lift his hand, lifting the blade.

‘Where do you want it?’ Roman asks, breath warm against the nape of his neck.

Victor hesitates a moment, thinking, and then tips his head back, baring his throat. Roman’s smile – a near-constant, puckish thing, these last few moments – slips back a couple of notches. ‘Now, babe, I’m not the kind of guy who breaks his toys just after taking them out of the box…’

‘I trust you,’ Victor says, and he does. He trusts that Roman needs him desperately enough not to discard him. Not right now.

‘Oh well. If you _insist_.’ Roman gently plucks the razor from Victor’s grasp entirely, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Victor leans back, as easily as sinking into saltwater.

‘You know, Mr. Zsasz,’ Roman murmurs, and Victor moans brokenly at the first drag of the blade against his throat. ‘I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’

**Author's Note:**

> \- I have a proper twitter now!! Hit me up @k_afkas, social distancing is making me lonely


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